Childminders in England say their professionalism could be undermined, and families ill-served, if government plans to change the way they are regulated go ahead.

Liz Bayram, joint chief executive of the National Childminding Association, said she was "very concerned" about signals that the government is seeking to bring "a lighter touch" to childminding regulation based on a model used in the Netherlands, and said she would be meeting the minister for children and families, Sarah Teather,on Wednesday to ask that measures designed to keep children safe and parents reassured would remain in place.

"The government seems to think childminders are fed up with red tape, and that they're abandoning their jobs because of it," she said. "But they're wrong. It's true that when Ofsted inspections were first introduced in 2001 there were concerns among some childminders, but in the years since, childminders have seen that there are lots of benefits in being inspected – not least, the sense that they're proper professionals providing a valuable early years setting for the children they care for.

"The system the government seems interested in is one that was used in the Netherlands, though it's now in the process of being abandoned because it wasn't successful there. Under that system, childminders would be regulated by an agency, and the agency would also refer families to them," said Bayram. She said that paying the agency might add to costs.

"Quite apart from it being a potential conflict of interest, I can't see how installing a middleman will make the system any better."

Sarah Phillips, whose daughters Amalie, three, and 17-month-old Lily are cared for by childminder Jane Comeau in Tunbridge Wells, said Ofsted inspection reports had been an important tool in her search for the right childcare for her daughters. "Knowing a childminder has been inspected gives parents a real sense of relief – you know they're assessing both the safety issues, and the development aspects," she said. "I'd feel really uncomfortable about the inspections being done away with."

Comeau, who cares for 19 children aged between 14 months and 10 years each week, said that where childminders had once moaned about inspections, they now recognised they were a sign of their professionalism. "There may well be fewer childminders now than before inspections, but that's a good thing because those childminders who regarded themselves as basically babysitters have disappeared," she said. "My last inspection lasted around five hours, and the inspector observed me working with the children, got parents' comments, and checked through my paperwork."

Writing in Nursery World this week, Conservative MP Elizabeth Truss, who is in favour of reform, says Ofsted spends around £2.1m a year visiting and inspecting around 55,000 childminders, but that research shows its reports are not a reliable measure of quality. She quotes the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, who told the Education select committee earlier this year that he did not think it was sustainable to continue to inspect every childminding setting.